Chelsea have reached half time in their game against Man City, and they had done so well until late in the half.
Reece James was brought into the team in midfield, as he often is, in order to add some physicality – on top of his experience and superb technical skill too. It worked well. He’s been really solid alongside Enzo Fernandez in the middle of the park. Sadly a moment of magic from Tijani Reijnders has the home team ahead.
James doing his part to keep Chelsea in game against dominant City
Reece James battles in midfield,
Reece James battles in midfield, (Photo by Ryan Pierse/Getty Images)
Chelsea knew what they wanted to do here – defend and try and hit City on the counter attack. James is the perfect player for that, able to compete in the middle of the pitch with anyone in terms of strength, while also a real threat in terms of his delivery from set pieces and shooting himself.
The Blues will need to do more in the second half if they actually want a point in this game, but their captain is providing a superb platform for them to do that. The question becomes – if we concede a second, and continue to look so toothless in attack, do we keep him on?
He played 45 minutes on Tuesday and we’ve got so many games to come in the next few weeks. Might it be a case of cutting our losses and keeping James fresh for the future? It’s certainly something we’d be considering if we were Calum McFarlane.
In other news…
Chelsea’s team for this game had a few expected and a few unexpected changes, and you can see the full lineup here.
You can see how this team compares to the one we predicted by checking out our predicted lineup piece for the game here.
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